DMB Digest: It's not easy being selfish.
Oh wait, I suppose it is.
I’m just not in the mood. I feel weird admitting it. For those of you who have followed me for a while, you know I do my best to be humorous and encouraging (while perhaps a bit preachy) each week. But satire is failing me at the moment. Nuance seems a lost cause. The blossoming American ideology of “me first” is aging like a fine vinegar with a side of moldy cheese. It’s stinking up the whole room.
I’ve been trying to simply go about my life with a certain degree of Puddy’s wisdom (from the sitcom Friends): “I’m not the one going to hell.” But my efforts to “be and let be” are failing. I’m not exactly sure why.
I understand that people are dying all over the world all the time. Nothing new there. I understand that power structures are inevitably put into place to preserve the status quo (ensuring those with power and wealth remain powerful and wealthy while everyone else remains downtrodden and under the thumb). I understand that my faith in Jesus the Christ is founded in overturning those power structures according to the teachings and narratives found throughout the Bible (humility, sacrifice, forgiveness, mercy, peace, etc.). I understand that the Kingdom detailed in Jesus’s teachings and all worldly kingdoms are therefore inevitably at odds with each other. I understand that many, many self-professed Christians don’t understand this foundational truth of Jesus’ teachings (and therefore attempt to gain power over other people through worldly structures all in the name of God).
I understand all of that. But it still hurts.
Today, I’m feeling that hurt. As a Texas-born-and-bred male, I’m not accustomed to getting in touch with my feelings. I’ve been trying to improve in this area. And currently I’m having feelings. When our Vice President says the Bible teaches we should care more about people like us than people who are not like us, it hurts. When I see elected agents of chaos creating policy that destroys life and yet I fail to scream out against it, it hurts.
I suspect I’m feeling the sting of hypocrisy. While my government’s paltry efforts to alleviate global pain and suffering were in place, I managed to insulate myself against all the injustice left unaddressed. I suppose I convinced myself that we (and by proxy me) were a caring people. We have good hearts. But our collective passivity toward dismantling what little good we were doing has revealed what lies beneath—vinegar and stinky cheese.
I suppose I must address the log in my own eye first. And it hurts.
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